At present, there are many techniques for the electronic monitoring of the movement of stock, which can be used in many different commercial scenarios, such as inventory management in a retail establishment or store. These monitoring techniques include the scanning of any one of a barcode printed on an item, an Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) tag affixed to the item, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag embedded in the item, and the like. These monitoring devices can be located at checkout counters or can be distributed throughout the store, where they may be augmented with digital signage to provide customer with information about the devices or items scanned by the devices.
Maintaining an accurate inventory of a store is extremely important to avoid missed sales due to the wrong item being present or not enough of the correct item being available to the customers. However, conventional inventory tracking (e.g. subtracting sold items from the items on display or manual stock taking) can be time consuming and prone to a number of types of error, including: shrinkage (theft), misplaced stock (items in an incorrect location) and incorrect measurement (recording five red XL sweaters rather than two XL's, two L's and an XXL).
In addition, for those monitoring devices that are distributed throughout the store, any hard-wiring of digital signage or RFID readers requires a semi-static layout of devices which reduces the ability to quickly rearrange a store layout in response to changes in customer behavior or store merchandise. In addition, for those monitoring devices that operate on batteries, the battery life in wireless devices is strongly influenced by how often a sign updates or an RFID reader reads.
Accordingly, there is a need for a battery-powered monitoring system that could be put in place which also provides a real time inventory and reacts to customer and product movement. In this way, the store would become more user friendly (greater customer interaction and less missed sales) at reduced costs (less need to check inventory).
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.